Alt as a real “modifier” in Plan 9 programs
Alt acts as a “compose” key by default, and there is little
to no way to change this. At the same time, a small hack can be used
to cancel the compose mode by fake-pressing Alt through
/dev/kbin: writing the scancode of the key to it. Whether it works
(or not) in drawterm is left as an exercise to the reader, as usual.
For this to work, your program needs to read /dev/kbd directly, and
keep /dev/kbin open for writing.
Both orca and FT2 clone are using this approach. You can test it by comparing “Alt, 1, 2” and “Alt, Alt, 1, 2” in a rio window.
The scancode is easy to find:
; g '(KF|Kalt)=' /sys/include/keyboard.h
/sys/include/keyboard.h:23: KF= 0xF000, /* Rune: beginning of private Unicode space */
/sys/include/keyboard.h:38: Kalt= KF|0x15,
; grep `{echo 'dec(0xf000|0x15)' | pc -n} /dev/kbmap
0 56 61461
0 70 61461
1 56 61461
1 70 61461
4 56 61461
An example of the logic:
if(r == Kalt)
write(kbin, "\x46", 1);
Happy hacking.
Last update: May 16, 2022 05:58PM
December 21, 2022 07:56PM